Question

Who was the first direct ancestor of modern humans?

Answer 1

The heritable changes that occur over time in a biological population is one of the functions of evolution. Through the process of evolution and passing on of these characteristics, the development of the organism has taken place over a longer period of time. Human evolution has taken place through such evolutionary processes.

Complete answer:
The process of human evolution began with the evolutionary development of the primates, especially the genus Homo. It led to the arising of the Homo sapiens as a distinct species of the hominid family. The other members of this family are the great apes. With this process, several gradual changes such as development of bipedal locomotion, language, thumb opposability and other features started to evolve. This allowed the interbreeding.
Modern humans originated about 2 million years ago in parts of the African sub-continent. The modern humans are considered to evolve from their first and most recent ancestors known as the Homo erectus. It means the upright man and it lived from 1.9 million years and 135,000 years ago.
The first specimen of the Homo erectus was obtained and excavated from the Solo River at East Java and was named erectus due to the femur which suggested that it utilized bipedal locomotion and walked upright. They are also considered as the missing link between apes and humans. Homo erectus is also known as Java Man.
The Homo erectus moved throughout the Old world and distributed in the region of Eurasia which extends from the Iberian Peninsula to Java. They had a human-like gait and body that was upright and also exhibited features such as a flat face, prominent nose and sparsely distributed body hairs. The cranial capacity ranged from 546-1251 cc and brain size was maximum during early life.
The Homo erectus was also found to be associated with the making of stone tools that were used for a variety of purposes such as gathering food, hunting and protection. They were capable of using fire and lived in gathered groups.

Note: The Java Man or Homo erectus was excavated from the areas of East Java and it lived about 2 million years ago. Homo erectus is considered as the first direct ancestor of the modern-day human. They walked upright with bipedal locomotion. They also utilized fires, stone tools and lived in gathered groups. In due course, they also dispersed to different areas of the Old World.